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Will Tondo open my chart?

Tondo reads many designer PDFs and supported files from chart software. The layout, scan quality and file version affect the result. Preview your own chart free, compare it with the original and check any warnings before saving it with Pro.

PDF charts, the main road

This is where most bought charts live. Tondo finds the grid, reads the symbols, and reads the thread key with its floss codes. Tiled pages of one pattern can become one continuous canvas. A book with separate designs can become separate projects.

Charts are made in different ways, so there is more than one way in. A chart drawn as text and lines is read straight off the page. A chart that is really a picture, including a scan or a photo of a printed chart, goes through image recognition instead: the grid is found, every square is matched against the symbols, and the legend is read by OCR. That path always lands in a review screen first. It never accepts itself quietly, because a scan can be misread and you should see what Tondo thinks it read before you spend six weeks on it.

Two cases are exact rather than approximate. A FlossCross print-PDF states its own size, floss list and per-colour counts inside the file, so Tondo checks its reading against those numbers before accepting. Any scanned chart whose legend prints per-thread stitch counts gets the same treatment: the counts have to match, or nothing is accepted automatically.

Files from chart software

These open directly, with the colours and thread codes the file carries:

  • OXS, the exchange format several programs read and write
  • PCStitch, versions 5 through 8. Newer saves are attempted and fail honestly if the file turns out to be built differently
  • Pattern Maker
  • KXStitch
  • Crosti
  • Stitch Art Easy!
  • FlossCross, both its own file and its SVG export
  • mySewnet, from Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff
  • StitchCraft
  • Cross Stitch Pro motifs
  • Pattern Keeper charts, which are PDFs on the inside

Backstitch, french knots and fractional stitches come through from several of these formats and are tracked apart from the crosses. Where a file holds something Tondo cannot place, the import report says so rather than dropping it quietly. If a designer sent you a zip, Tondo looks inside and takes the chart out.

The honest no’s

Some files are recognised precisely and then refused, by name, with the reason. That is deliberate. When you are about to spend months on a chart, a subtly wrong one is worse than none.

  • Cstitch projects are not charts. The file is a recipe the program replays: your picture, the settings, and the edits you made. Reading it would mean rebuilding Cstitch’s own maths exactly, and any drift would hand you a chart that looks right and is not.
  • Cross Stitch Saga, KG-Chart, Coricamo and Puntotek files are recognised, but their chart data is packed in a way their makers do not publish.
  • Easy Cross De Luxe and MarkUp R-XP files are encrypted. Prising them open is not something we will do.
  • WinStitch and MacStitch project files are, by their own maker’s account, not meant to be read anywhere else.
  • A Pattern Keeper progress export carries your progress but no chart: no grid, no palette, no symbols. On its own there is nothing to draw.

If yours is on that list, the way in is the chart’s PDF, which nearly every designer ships, or an OXS export from the program you already have.

Photos are a different door

Choose cross stitch to convert a photo into a counted chart with DMC colours, or hand embroidery for an outline and suggested threads. You can also draw on a blank grid. Processing happens on your device. Previews are free; Pro unlocks saving your own designs. The features page explains each option.

If your chart does not open

Check the import message and the supported formats above. If a supported file still fails, contact [email protected] with the file type, your device, Tondo version and what happened. Include the chart if you can share it for troubleshooting. An unreadable scan or unsupported format may need a clearer file, an export from the original program or manual reconstruction.